What level of detail should questions have?

Question

Before anybody can effectively solve a problem; they need to know what the problem is. That is true in real life, and that is true in Stack Exchange. As a result, there are rules that questions should be specific, answerable, objective, researched, and have context. This is especially necessary on Worldbuilding Stackexchange; because other users cannot read the mind of the OP or see what imaginary world they're trying to create.

There is such a thing as too much detail, even on Stackexchange. There are rules that an answer must be relevant to others. This is because Stack Exchanges are designed to help users search through the website and find questions & answers relevant to them. If a question is hyper-specific to one scenario, than it is unlikely anybody else will benefit from answers to it.

There are also more practical reasons that a question shouldn't be overloaded with detail. One, longer and more verbose posts are less likely to get answers & comments since fewer users would want to sift through everything to answer the question. Two, users ask questions on here for a reason; they want an answer to a topic that they're not knowledgeable in (or at least not knowledgeable enough to answer their own question). If a very high level of detail is expected or even required of users to post a question, it would defeat the purpose of StackExchange. Because anyone already fully knowledgeable about what they're talking about or describing could just answer their own question!

@Nepene Nep asked a question earlier about outside factors. I don't fully agree with his rant, but I do agree that commenters can be nitpicky on what information is needed to fully answer a user's question. One year ago, I had a question closed (and now deleted) about the effectiveness of post-medieval alloys for medieval swords. I gave a specific time period, a specific polity, emphasis on melee warfare, a list of said alloys, and limited the alloys to a specific type of weapon (swords) in a specific world (real life). And it still got closed because people wanted to know if the metals were supposed to be used for a shortsword or longsword or kopesh, katana, rapier (stuff Byzantines never used) etc. They also wanted to know whether archers, footman, or cavalry would be using these new swords. Commenters were more focused on brainstorming for the OP then trying to answer it.

So the question is, how much context and information must the questioner provide to receive a high-quality question here? I say that all required and helpful information about the question should be provided so that it can be answered; no more and especially no less. Then, other users should primarily focus on what the OP said in order to answer the question. This is doubly true if the OP is creating a fantasy world or science-fiction world that doesn't fully adhere to real-life science.

Answer 1

I just finished making a comment to @Elemtilas' answer and feel that it makes sense to embed it into an answer.

United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in the famous 1964 case Jacobellis v. Ohio said...

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it.

That's half the problem we're facing here, and I'll get to that momentarily. In commentary to and criticism of Justice Stewart's famous statement, William T. Goldberg said...

This simple phrase, embedded in a plurality opinion, carries with it many of the conflicts and inconsistencies that continue to plague American obscenity law. In effect, "I know it when I see it" can still be paraphrased and unpacked as: "I know it when I see it, and someone else will know it when they see it, but what they see and what they know may or may not be what I see and what I know, and that's okay."

And that's the other half of the problem.

Is it OK? Who's an expert?

Questions and answers in this Meta have famously asked the question, "who's an expert on magic?" Nobody, obviously, since (insofar as we can prove) magic doesn't exist. But that's an inaccurate perspective because when it comes to this and only this website, the real question is, "who's an expert in constructing magic systems?" Such people are experts and, since the OP isn't, they can judge whether or not there's enough detail.

But that's only half the problem...

• Because there's a lot of us who have enough experience to be really, really dangerous and so we think we're experts.
• And then there's those people who think all things worldbuilding should be strictly and rigidly based in science falsely so called, meaning that they erroneously believe that what facts (science) we understand today represent truth. It doesn't, but that's an issue for another post. The point here is that these, the scientists falsely so called, demand a different set of details than the experts and the experts falsely so called. (Laugh with me people!)
• And then there's those people who judge the question based on their level of education and expect yet another set of details.
• And then there's those people who speak English as a second language, which means the question may be difficult to understand or the respondent may not have a good enough grasp of colloquial English to understand the question — and so here's another set of details....

I can go on, but I hope you see the point. Ours is not a Stack that depends on the predictable objectivity of, for example, programming. Ours is ridiculously, gloriously, even blessedly imaginative.

And that's the problem.

Having just made a similar comment to a Sandbox post I believe myself oddly prepared to make the following statements. I could be wrong, but this is my story and I'm sticking to it.

1. The OP must be ridiculously clear, complete, and focused with the actual question. They cannot ever, ever, ever assume that anyone knows what they're talking about — because they're yet another of those people assuming what level of detail is needed and we will jump to conclusions since we can't read the OP's mind and don't know anything about the OP personally. How one asks a question on this site is a bigger deal than on any other Stack. (IMHO)
2. The OP must tell us what details specifically matter, and what details specifically don't. If the justification for why something matters or not is important to the question, then include it. If not, DON'T INCLUDE IT, just tell us bluntly, "why this is the way it is, is irrelevant to the question and may not be considered for answers." Why do I love conditions like that? Because if a respondent passionately believes that you have no honking idea what you're talking about, it forces them to answer with a (hopefully) well-thought-out Frame Challenge rather than some comment telling the OP there are too many/few details.
3. The backstory (which really is different from the details) is interesting, but functionally irrelevant. Including it is almost always a bad idea unless the OP is very clear about it being nothing more than entertainment. An OP can really confuse respondents by interweaving the backstory with the question and its conditions — putting people in the position of judging the backstory. When an OP is thinking about "details," they must think carefully about what really is a FACT or CONDITION that's needed to understand the question and what's just cool story. This is perhaps the most challenging and most frustrating aspect about asking questions here. We're doing it (usually) because we're writing a story or building a game and we think (think!) that the story or game is important to the question. It isn't. Or, more accurately, if it is, it's not a worldbuilding question.

As you might imagine, the Sandbox is your friend.

Conclusion

How much wood can a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

He would chuck all the wood that a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

There is no objective answer to your question. You need the right amount of detail to make the majority of respondents happy. If people point out the need for additional detail, you need to edit the post (not make a comment...) to include it or explain why it should be ignored. You need to be patient because you're dealing with everybody from inexperienced teenagers to experienced old folks and everyone from moderately educated junior high school students to sometimes over educated professionals and PhDs. We're going to have a disastrously diverse set of opinions about what the right amount of detail should be.

But in the end, it's really YOU who makes that decision. This is a blunt and ruthless observation, but if a question was closed because there was too much detail, it was you who failed to remove extraneous errata or explain why it was needed. If it was closed for too little detail, it was you who failed to either provide additional detail or explain why it isn't needed. Because the public has a funny way of deciding for itself what's "right."

Welcome to democracy my friend. And as Sir Winston Churchill once said...

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…

Answer 2

Impossible to Quantify

But I know it when I see it!

I'm going to ignore the narrative about your own question (because the question has been deleted and therefore can not be properly evaluated within the context of this Meta discussion) and am also going to ignore the suggestion that we consider Nepente Nep's query as supporting evidence (because that question, while not a bad question per se had so many issues that it would be problematic to base any kind of recommendation, proposal or policy on it).

And, at least in my opinion, your discussion here can be fairly approached without recourse to any specific question on Main. We actually have plenty of resources that, I think, adequately address your question here.

First, non-quantifiable. What does this even mean? Well, you pretty much answer your own question right in your first sentence! You said: "Before anybody can effectively solve a problem; they need to know what the problem is." In other words, I as a querent need to do three basic things:

1. I need to understand the nature of the problem I'm facing as a worldbuilder.
2. I need to know enough about my world to comprehend how the problem meshes with other aspects of my world.
3. I need to convey this knowledge and understanding to the respondents here.

There are no equations or formulas or straight up quantities of detail that would yield an objective answer to the question. In other words, I can't assign percentages of the question text to these three numbers; I can't assign a fixed number of words, of paragraphs, of bullet points, or offer a linear measure, etc.

Second, the Goldilocks Principle. As you clearly stated in your question, there is a such thing as "too much detail". You cite SE norms and practical considerations which I agree with. Without coming out and stating it directly, I believe you are also implying that there is such a thing as "too little detail". Closure logs, I'm certain, are replete with VTC because of "too little detail" and "insufficient clarity".

This means there is a happy medium. Neither too much nor too little. We can't quantify this level of detail, but we each can declare along with Goldilocks that "this query has just the right amount of detail!"

So! What's the answer already!

From my perspective as respondent, I would only mildly disagree with your assessment that a querent needs to provide "all required and helpful" information. Not everything that is helpful is needed, and not everything that is required may be helpful.

My answer, therefore, is: The querent should write a good question. She should ask the question she wants the answer to. She should give sufficient context & details. She should set appropriate conditions and parameters. She should know her own world sufficiently well to understand the nature of her problem and thereby ask a focused query.

To this end, WB.SE has a large number of resources available to help guide the querent in crafting a question in such a way that it asks what needs to be asked and gives sufficient detail to be answered.

1. We have the Sandbox where querents can learn how to write, edit and shape their questions.
2. We have Meta questions and answers that address topics such as How Do I Ask Good Worldbuilding Questions? and How to Write the Perfect Question and How to Ask a Really Big Question.
3. We also have an excellent List of Worldbuilding Resources that can help a querent come to a good understanding of what they're getting into when they start worldbuilding and some of the considerations we have when answering questions. We've also got a whole primer: Lessons on Writing Questions.

Answer 3

Elemtilas is right and also wrong. The necessary level of detail to make any particular question answerable is quantifiable once you've looked at it. What is impossible is finding a generalised level of detail that will make any question, on any topic, answerable. The Sandbox helps, no doubt about it but even there it is possible to overlook important details, this recent question of mine originally missed a vital detail. Even with three of us looking at it we didn't notice that the initial atmospheric volume was a deeply important factor in what happened. As a result several answers that I felt were making good arguments/observations missed out on true brilliance because they were forced to assume I was trying to spread Earth's atmosphere around when in fact the initial atmospheric volume needed to be roughly a thousand times greater to fill the available space as intended (4.2x10¹⁸ versus 1.23x10²¹).

Ultimately a question needs to start with all the details that the OP feels are relevant, and then the OP needs to be open to including more, sometimes a lot more, and possibly to removing some as well, that's much rarer. I have seen, and written, some questions that initially failed to be answerable due to a lack of setting details rescued by judicious editing. I've also seen many questions that could have stayed open and been answered lost because the OP didn't address the concerns of the community about the level of detail they had and hadn't provided. This query about the Antarctic is a classic example of a question we could have answered properly with a bit of engagement from the OP, instead they appear to have asked with something particular in mind but then failed to engage when asked for clarity.

I deeply concur with your statement that "other users should primarily focus on what the OP said in order to answer the question." The number of bunfights I've gotten into because people ignored the stated premise of a question is a constant source of aggravation, especially where they have useful insights that they're applying to the question they wanted me to ask instead of what I did actually say.